The Limits Of Libertarianism When You're Rand Paul

In which the libertarian moment passes once again.

Pity poor Senator Aqua Buddha. Even Bill Maher is disappointed in him. Maher bit hard on Paul's brogressive-hero scam in regards to war powers and "civil liberties," although the latter never much extended to the 14th Amendment-derived right of women to control their reproductive health. This is what happens when you lose sight of the blog's Five Minute Rule regarding any political pronouncement by any member of the Paul family.

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Maher's disappointment centers on how Aqua Buddha (inevitably) began pandering both to the Christianist base of his party, and to the whackadoo camouflaged underwear crowd that always has been the Paul family's base of support. First, Paul called for a third Great Awakening, including mass tent revival and, we can only hope, extensive rattlesnake-juggling. Then, he announced his support for "looking into" the situation regarding Jade Helm 15, a military exercise that many gabbling paranoids have seen as a disguised effort for the United States to occupy Texas. Both of these gave Maher the vapors, although it's hard to see why. Aqua Buddha wants to be president and this kind of thing is all he has left.

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As sprawling as it is, the Republican presidential field is sorting itself out into a pretty conventional campaign—wild on its fringes, certainly, and entertaining as hell, but the basic dynamic regarding who actually gets nominated is fairly predictable. It will depend on who can be hawkish enough on foreign policy, and who can convince The Base that he's with them on issues not involving the messages The Base gets through its fillings, and who can raise enough money to survive the process. Aqua Buddha has been wrongfooted by the rise of the neocons concerning national-security—in a debate, his alleged dovishness is going to get challenged by at least three other members of the field—and there aren't enough of the pure nutters to make a difference. So he's still trying to middle his way through, but the effort is sliding him toward being a fairly conventional conservative Republican. Which doesn't leave much to distinguish him from any of these other people.

So he's reduced to floating proposals like the one he did yesterday, when he called for advocates for the disabled to help him set disabled people against old people in the effort to dismantle Social Security generally.

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Paul's solution: Persuade advocates to stop just clamoring for more funding and start thinking about efficiency. "I think it's important that all the advocates for disability realize that it's in their best interest to make sure that people who are disabled are receiving money," he said. "So, there's a lot of reforms that we've talked about–having more certainty in annual exams, having the exams done by doctors who have not seen the patient and can be objective in confirming the disability. There's a lot of reform we can do, and the key is getting the advocates involved."